"Jeg reiser alltid med lite bagasje."
Translation:I always travel with little baggage.
26 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Duo, please note, adverbs in English can have many places in a sentence!
In English, adverbs of limiting frequency (e.g., always, never, rarely) precede the noun they modify, i.e., I always travel.
In English baggage can mean emotional attachments. Someone with little baggage will cut and run and not get emotionally involved. Could it have this meaning in Norwegian?
It seems that in this sentence "lite" indicates that "bagasje" is a neuter noun, but in a previous sentence it was "bagasjen," and this website says it's masculine. Is this an irregularity, or simply an error? :O
Its because bagasje is an uncountable noun (you don't say *"to bagasjer" or *"mange bagasjer"). If it were a countable noun you would use "få": Jeg reiser alltid med få kofferter.
That isn't exactly what I was asking. I was asking about the gender of the noun. "lite" is the adjective used with neuter nouns, but "bagasje" is a masculine noun. I'm curious about why the neuter adjective is used with a masculine noun. I'm not really getting how that relates to whether it's a countable or uncountable noun. :/ Some further clarification would be greatly appreciated. :D
It has everything to do with being an uncountable noun :) You use "lite" for a small quantity, regardless of the noun's gender. "lite vann", "lite melk", "lite bagasje". Even though it looks the same as the neuter form of the adjective "liten", it has not quite the same meaning. You wouldn't say *"a small milk" in English, either. I hope this clears it up!
Hmmm... I came here with a slightly different question, but I'm thinking that Stigjohan's answer here may relate. I was going to ask if "lite" here meant "just a few", or if it meant "physically small". Or if it could mean both. But now I am thinking that "lite bagasje" can only refer to a "small quantity" of baggage. On the other hand, if I was literally traveling with physically small baggage (say, only carry-ons), then it would be correct to say "Jeg reiser med liten bagasje". So in the case of having baggage that is physically small, AlsEenPoffertje would be justified in using "liten". Am I right in my thinking?
I have to say that I am often puzzled as to why people down vote the things that they do. This is a straightforward and sincere question. If you have a problem with it, say what that is. But don't just down vote with no explanation.
not quite. You say with small suitcases in English and -- I think -- with små kofferter på norsk, but certainly not with small baggage(s) and ditto på norsk. Although lite is an adjective everything works better if you think of it as an adverb answering the how-much-question. Since adverbs are independent of the gender of the noun; it does not change. I wish sb could explain how this works. ( I remember a construction (from grammer edu in school) called something like sentence/word adverbial, but not in detail. Maybe that is close).
just mine to cents...
not quite. You say with small suitcases in English and -- I think -- with små kofferter på norsk, but certainly not with small baggage(s) and ditto på norsk. Although lite is an adjective everything works better if you think of it as an adverb answering the how-much-question. Since adverbs are independent of the gender of the noun; it does not change. I wish sb could explain how this works. ( I remember a construction (from grammer edu in school) called something like sentence/word adverbial, but not in detail. Maybe that is close).
just mine to cents...
Oh, that makes a lot more sense now! Thank you very much for explaining it. :D
BTW, if you make a mistake, the correction comes up saying the correct response is "I always travel with light baggage", while here on the discussion page it says "I always travel with little baggage".
when one makes a mistake, Duolingo will show you the closest it can find to the sentence typed.
"...with little baggage" ( or "luggage", as we would say in English), sounds stilted to me, so I put "with not much luggage", which was marked wrong. I don't see why: obviously it's not a literal translation, but it's more idiomatic.
If I wanted to use a negation, I'd go with, "I always travel without much luggage."
"With not much," sounds unusual to me.
